[Whoa!]
Gisella let out a voice full of awe as we stepped out of the hospital. I rubbed my temples, still a little disoriented from the earlier mental checkup.
"Why the hell did they have to hit my head with a club?"
I grumbled. The doctors called it 'concussive clearing'—something about warding off lingering evil spirits from the trial.
Some people called it superstition, but the professionals insisted it was the only way to make sure a spirit hadn't left a 'backdoor' in your skull.
[The world is definitely different from my memories,]
Gisella whispered, her voice trembling with wonder.
Through her eyes, well, my eyes, I finally took in the surroundings of Old Eisbourg with a fresh perspective.
Brick buildings rose in orderly rows, their windows vibrating with the rhythmic clack-clack of distant hammers.
Chimneys exhaled thick black smoke into a sky threaded with copper wires and unfinished rail lines that cut through the air like spiderwebs.
Horse-drawn carriages still ruled the cobblestones, yet overhead, massive iron frameworks stretched from tower to tower like the ribs of some mechanical leviathan waiting for its skin.
"What's so amazing? It's the same as always," I muttered.
[It is new to me… Woah! What is that?]
In the center of the boulevard, a team of engineers surrounded a massive locomotive frame suspended on heavy scaffolds.
Its hollow chest held a circular housing etched with luminous, glowing sigils that pulsed like a heartbeat.
"That's a new type of carriage," I explained.
[Carriage? So they are suspending it because it will be easier to be drawn by horses?]
I couldn't help but smirk.
"Listen, you bumpkin. That's a revolution. This carriage doesn't need horses. It moves on its own."
[On its own? How?]
"Well…" My smirk faltered slightly.
"I don't actually know the specifics. But it uses something like a monster core to run. What was it called again… right. An engine. It runs on an engine."
[Engine? What is that?]
I stepped closer to the frame, pointing at the dense cluster of bronze valves and spinning pistons.
"The mechanical gears you're seeing around it. That's the engine. You can see it, right?"
[…I can see whatever you can.]
"Good. Then pretend you understand. It's still a work in progress. A few months from now, they say it'll run from the capital to the western mines. No horses. Just rails."
[I would like to see that. A carriage moving on its own… How did anyone even come up with such a thing?]
I stared at the locomotive for a few seconds before turning away, the metal cold and indifferent.
"This, and most new inventions… they all came from the Void Gates."
[Void Gates?]
"It seems you really don't know anything," I sighed.
[As I said, I was buried down there for more than a hundred years.]
"Hm. Fair enough."
Vendors shouted over the clang of steel. Apprentices ran past with heavy coils of copper wire.
Posters fluttered on brick walls proclaiming the Dawn Rail Project. I adjusted the coat I had borrowed from Hans and kept walking, my gaze drifting toward the horizon.
"A hundred and seventy years ago, Novara was simple," I began.
"Well… as simple as human land can be. Seven kingdoms. One empire. And humanity ruled all of it."
[Seven kingdoms… That does ring a bell.]
I passed the market and turned onto a narrower, shadowed street.
"Back then, we were busy fighting each other like usual. But things escalated when Michael Ashveil became the sixth emperor of the Ashveil Empire. He was ambitious. Hungry. The empire already had the most land, the most soldiers. But that wasn't enough. They wanted everything. So they stopped pretending and started conquering."
[Greed,]
Gisella whispered.
"Exactly. The kingdoms banded together. Cities burned. Armies clashed. Standard human behavior. The ones who started it stayed behind walls while farmers died on battlefields. The war dragged on for three years, and the alliance finally cornered the empire. Victory was close."
[So they won?]
I let out a dry, bitter laugh.
"If only history were that kind. Michael Ashveil, furious and desperate, did something forbidden... He called upon the Outer Gods."
[The Outer Gods!?]
I felt a shiver run through my soul, her reaction.
'Do you know that words?'
[I don't remember clearly… but it feels wrong. Like something rotten.]
"They were beings from beyond. Not spirits, not gods we worship. Something bigger. Something other."
We reached a stone bridge overlooking a canal.
The water reflected the sky, showing two moons: one pale and one a deep, haunting red.
"The Outer Gods answered. They told him to open the Gates. And he did." I looked up.
"The human war ended that day. Because it stopped being a human war."
Above us hung the real moon. Pale. Fractured. Like cracked porcelain barely holding together.
"The red moon you see in the water? That's just chemicals. An atmospheric reminder of the Red Moon Spirit."
[…Where did the real red moon go?]
"It was destroyed during the first decade of the gate openings."
Silence lingered between us, heavy and suffocating.
"The Divine Spirits weren't pleased with outsiders invading their world," I continued.
"They declared war on the Outer Gods. For a hundred years, the sky burned. The seas boiled. Mortals like us were just ants caught between titans. Eventually, it stopped.
No one knows why, a ceasefire, or maybe they just got bored of breaking the world. But the Gates remained."
I pushed off the railing and resumed walking toward the residential district.
"After that, everything changed. The land beyond the gates became the Dark Continent. Monsters poured out. But knowledge came out, too. Blueprints. Concepts from other worlds. Engines. Essence cores."
[Isn't that dangerous? What if it's another trap?]
I shrugged.
"Maybe it is. But after a century of gods tearing the sky apart, people stopped caring about cosmic conspiracies.
Mortals suffered the most. Now that things are quiet, everyone just wants progress. Stability. You asked why I'm so nonchalant about the curse?"
[Aren't you just too stupid to understand it?]
I chuckled.
"Curses, abnormalities… those are just part of daily life in Novara now. I won't be the first person to be cursed by a spirit, and I won't be the last. It's the price of living under a broken sky."
I stopped talking. We had arrived at a small, sturdy building with blue shutters.
"We're here. Time to get my gear back."